Opposition victory punches holes in BJP’s grand Hindutva umbrella plan on which it rode to power in 2014, raises questions on leadership and charisma of Yogi Adityanath.
New Delhi: The BJP’s loss in the keenly watched Lok Sabha bypoll in Kairana is an indication that the party’s grand Hindutva coalition, which helped it sweep Uttar Pradesh in 2014, may be coming undone.
Tabassum Hasan of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) beat her BJP rival Mriganka Singh Thursday, by around 55,000 votes. Hasan was backed by the Congress, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Her victory is another win for the opposition grouping in the state against the BJP. In March, the ruling party faced embarrassing losses in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, seats held by the BJP’s chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy, Keshav Prasad Maurya. There too a combined opposition had managed to outwit the BJP.
Thursday’s defeat will dampen the mood in the party, which on May 26 celebrated four years of its government at the Centre. More so, as it has come in the constituency in which the party launched its Hindutva strategy in 2014. Against a united opposition, a caste battle is proving a tough challenge for the party.
“The BJP’s Hindu polarisation in UP originated from Kairana and other regions of Western UP and they managed to gain a handsome victory in 2014,” said Sudhir Panwar, a Samajwadi Party leader.
“The opposition was courageous in fielding a Muslim candidate. The BJP tried everything to divide it on communal lines but it failed. This proves that Hindutva will not work now,” he said.
In 2014, Jats and Dalits — still reeling from the effects of the previous year’s communal riots — had voted for the BJP in Kairana, helping the party garner the majority of the Hindu vote. However, if recent results are any indication, the BJP is more or less left with only its traditional upper caste vote bank.
Anger at policies
Apart from the caste equation going against the party, the result also appears to reflect the anger among the voters against the policies of the Modi government.
“They tried to make Jinnah an issue and ignore ganna (sugarcane), which was the real issue,” says RLD leader Jayant Chaudhary. “Jinnah lost, ganna won. This is not about any one or two communities. There is a larger discontent among the people against the policies of this government.”
Faltering poll firepower
The party had pulled out all stops in Kairana, particularly after the defeats in Gorakhpur and Phulpur. The bypoll even saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi get involved with the campaign.
A day before polling, he conducted a rally in Baghpat while inaugurating the Eastern Peripheral Expressway, which is just 50 km from Kairana. The BJP had calculated that the PM’s rally in an adjoining area would influence voters. There, however, has been no visible impact on the voter’s mind.
Apart from Modi, chief minister Adityanath attended three big rallies but once again failed to attract the voters. This is the third straight election loss for the BJP since Adityanath became chief minister of the state in March 2017.
The BJP, however, is defiant and does not believe that the loss is a vote against the government’s policies and communalisation.
“It is a vote for fatwa against vikas (development). The impact of a fatwa (diktat) to vote against the BJP, issued by minority institutions like the Deoband, can be seen in the results. We will sit and think on how to overcome this going forward,” said Vijay Bahadur Pathak, the BJP in-charge of western UP.